Elon Musk’s X has refused to engage with a royal commission into antisemitism, despite evidence that the platform has become a breeding ground for anti-Jewish hate.
Elon Musk and his social media company X have received a dressing-down from the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion for refusing to engage with the inquiry and allowing hate speech to run rampant.
Counsel assisting the royal commission, Richard Lancaster SC, took aim at X, formerly Twitter, and other platforms that “simply refused” to assist the inquiry, questioning whether X still had a social licence to operate in Australia.
“X Corp has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in providing transparency on a topic as important as keeping Australians safe from the proliferation of terrorist and violent extremist material, including extreme anti-Semitism,” he said on Friday.
Mr Lancaster referred to evidence from Andre Oboler, chief executive of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, who observed that X had been particularly difficult to work with since it was bought by Mr Musk, “who significantly downgraded its trust and safety functions”.
“Dr Oboler has observed that it remains a major online contributor to online anti-Semitism,” Mr Lancaster said.
Despite several witnesses telling the inquiry that X had fostered antisemitic hate and threats directed at them and their families, the company had not responded to any correspondence from the royal commission.
“Although an apparent proponent of unconstrained speech, X has remained silent,” Mr Lancaster said.
He said X’s refusal to engage with a royal commission examining how to make social media less of a hotbed for antisemitism showed a “shocking disrespect and disregard” for the Australian community.
“X Corp generates profits from content displayed on its platform, and does so by promoting unconstrained publication of speech and images,” he said.
“X decides to be active in Australia, to fight for content to be available on X that would, if published, cause immense sadness and harm to the Australian Jewish community.”
Unlike X, representatives of professional networking platform LinkedIn engaged with the inquiry.
James Patrick Corrigan, LinkedIn’s vice-president of legal, said the platform used teams of moderators and artificial intelligence systems, including large language models, to identify and remove harmful content, including antisemitic material.
Earlier, SBS defended its decision not to adopt a controversial but widely used definition of antisemitism, while revealing it had poured more resources into its Hebrew-language service following the 2023 terrorist attacks.
Under repeated questioning, SBS director of news and current affairs Amanda Wicks said the broadcaster did not need a concrete definition because it relied on police, Australia’s legal system and the broader community to determine whether an incident was antisemitic.
“We are attributing that to someone else. We’re never in a position where something happens and we will need a definition,” she said.
Some Jewish groups have criticised SBS and the ABC for not adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.
While the definition is widely used, including by the royal commission, some critics argue it could classify legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal earlier said she had a “great deal of difficulty” understanding why the broadcasters did not use the definition.
“It doesn’t stop criticism of Israel, it doesn’t stop debate, it just gives guides,” she said.
Ms Wicks said SBS would never need to determine on its own whether something was antisemitic, so it did not have to accept or reject the IHRA definition.
ABC news director Gavin Fang said his organisation had not adopted the definition because of its contested nature.
The commission will examine the role of universities in the spread of antisemitism during its next block of hearings, which begins on Monday.
By Jacob Shteyman, Zac de Silva and Lucinda Garbutt-Young/AAP